


Two Guys and a Fire

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic [104]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, First Meetings, M/M, Prompt Fill, Protests, Reunions, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7727389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LJ Comment Fic for Myths and Legends prompt: <i>Stargate Atlantis AU, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, At the Kent State protests, John is one of the ROTC soldiers, and Rodney befriends him after putting a flower in the barrel of his gun</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Guys and a Fire

**May, 1970**

Everything on the ground was chaos. Fire trucks, protestors, campus police, town police, National Guard. Rodney watched it all from the roof of his dormitory, far enough away to avoid the tear gas but close enough to feel the heat from the fire.

Someone had torched the ROTC building. The blaze illuminated the night with a red glow.

“We don’t want your fuckin’ war!” the guy standing next to Rodney shouted.

“Shut the fuck up!” he snapped in return. _Fucking hippies_ , he thought disdainfully.

It wasn’t that Rodney was pro-war. Any sane person, especially if they crunched the numbers, could see that they’d already lost Vietnam. The long-hairs with their flower power and sit-ins weren’t going to change things, and neither were the idiots that were throwing rocks at the firemen who were just trying to do their job.

Rodney was of the opinion that public sway counted for nothing during wartime. Love it or hate it, Tricky Dick was going to send troops into Cambodia, and he didn’t give a fuck what a bunch of Kent State radicals had to say about it.

The hippie moved off, likely to go find others of its kind, and revealed a more clean-cut guy sitting on the edge of the roof, legs dangling.

“That’s a bad scene.”

“You have a gift for understatement,” Rodney observed. Another fire truck pulled up, reinforcements because the protestors had stolen the hose off the first one. “You know, I was at yesterday’s rally. It wasn’t anything like this.”

“Yeah? You think all soldiers are baby killers too?” The guy didn’t look at him, but the glow of the fire illuminated tense posture and hunched shoulders. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he was all about.

“Of course I don’t. I’m not an asshole. You ROTC?”

“Was. Not sure what I am now.”

Rodney had never paid much attention to the ROTC guys on campus, except to admire them from afar when they were doing formations, or whatever they were called. He could admit, if only to himself, that there was something about the uniform he found visually pleasing. He only belatedly wondered what it was like for those guys to see all the campus protests, and be blamed for a war they weren’t even part of yet.

“I wasn’t at the rally to protest,” Rodney blurted out. He was glad the relative darkness hid the flush in his cheeks.

“You with the school paper or something?”

“I was trying to impress this girl. Jennifer.”

The guy snorted, and Rodney thought he looked a little less tense. “She’s a real babe, huh?”

“She had me at an anti-war rally. If you knew me, you’d know that I wouldn’t do that for just anyone.”

“So you’re pro-war?”

“No. Why would I be? It’s stupid.”

The guy shifted his position so that he was looking at Rodney, who had a moment of terror when he thought the guy might slip off and fall. It was a long way down, with only a fire truck to break his fall.

“You’re a real weirdo, aren’t you?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Rodney muttered.

He wasn’t surprised the soldier-in-training thought so. He was really handsome, with the kind of dark good looks that made even the smart girls start simpering like bimbos. Pair that with a uniform and even a modicum of personality, and this guy would be a real force to be reckoned with.

“You think anyone was inside?” the guy asked, looking back down at the fire.

Rodney shook his head. “This late at night? No. I mean, I really hope not.”

“Pretty stupid, burning the place down. Like that’ll make Nixon change his mind.”

“You want to go over there?” Rodney asked, honestly curious. “I mean, that’s why you’re in ROTC, right?”

“I want to fly,” the guy replied. “My dad wants college. This way we both get what we want.”

“Not to point out the flaw in your logic, but there are easier ways to fly that don’t involve going to countries where people are actively shooting at you.”

“You don’t know my dad,” the guy said flatly. “What about you? If you can avoid the draft, what do you want to do with your life?”

“Well, for one thing I’m Canadian. No draft. And yes, I appreciate the irony of being a Canadian in the States when so many draft dodgers are crossing the border. Ha, ha.” That got Rodney a choked-sounding laugh from the soldier boy. “I want to join NASA. And there’s another example of flying you could do. Why settle for helicopters or fighter planes, when you could fly to the moon?”

Rodney tilted his head back, but the night sky was obscured by smoke from the fire. It didn’t matter, since he knew the constellations like the back of his hand. Space was the new frontier, like the West had been once upon a time. And Rodney wanted to be part of it, to explore strange new worlds like Spock did on _Star Trek_. Maybe humanity could make a better go of things out there, since they were doing a lousy job on terra firma.

“I think I’ll hold out for a space ship,” the guy chuckled. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Rodney. Rodney McKay.”

“John Sheppard.” He hopped off the ledge and back on the roof, with a grace Rodney would never be able to emulate. “Good luck getting to the stars, Rodney.”

“Try not to get shot of the sky,” Rodney replied.

John gave him a cocky salute and then he was headed for the stairs, and parts unknown. It was the last Rodney would see of him. Two days later the protests would reach a peak, and the National Guard would fire into the crowd. Four of Rodney’s fellow students would be killed, and nine injured.

When the campus paper reported on the massacre, Rodney was startled to see a picture of John Sheppard, listed as one of the injured. Rodney hemmed and hawed about going to see John in the hospital – there was something about the guy, how he wanted to fly so bad he’d travel to a warzone to get to do it – but when he finally decided to go John was already gone, taken home by his father.

Rodney wondered if John would ever achieve his dream.

**May, 1980**

If Rodney had to listen to one more ABBA song, he was going to kill someone. At the rate things were going, he was never going to get _Mama Mia_ out of his head. The things he put up with in the name of scientific exploration. At least Dr. Fulsome had laid off the Bee Gees for a while.

“Dr. McKay?”

“Yes?” he asked, a bit more snappishly than he intended. He was in the middle of some very delicate calculations. He needed another chalkboard.

Dr. Kusanagi, looking a little like an owl with the oversized glasses she wore, hovered hesitantly in the doorway. She was a fine physicist, but far too skittish for Rodney’s liking.

“They’ve brought that pilot in. The one with the gene.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll be right there. And can we please turn this music off, before my head explodes?”

Rodney immediately dismissed Dr. Kusanagi from his mind, getting back to his calculations. There was something he was missing, he was sure of it. If only he could figure out what. He puzzled over it for another ten minutes before he threw the chalk across the room and stomped out.

The SGC had some pilot they wanted him to meet. He’d lit up the control chair like a beacon, Sam had said. Only Colonel O’Neill had an expression that strong. Rodney had to admit it would be handy, having someone around to switch on the Ancient artefacts they’d found. It wasn’t like he could take out an ad in the paper, an open call for ATA gene carriers.

Life had been easier at NASA. But definitely not nearly as interesting.

“Rodney! There you are!” Sam, of course, acting as the welcome wagon. “Come meet John.”

John was wearing standard-issue BDUs and sitting rather bonelessly in a chair at the conference table. There was something familiar about him that Rodney couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Major John Sheppard, this is Dr. Rodney McKay. He’s the head of our science division, and the person most in need of your gene.”

The name was familiar, too. “Have we met?” Rodney asked.

John gave him a once over, and then narrowed his eyes. When he broke into a grin, his already attractive face turning into something much more interesting, Rodney was reminded of…fire?

“Rodney McKay. You’re not that same skinny kid from the roof.”

Of course! Rodney snapped his fingers. “Kent State! Wow, what are the odds we’d run into each other again?”

“One in twenty thousand,” John replied. “You ever get to fly to the moon?”

“Nope. Way beyond it. I see you’re flying, and still inexplicably in one piece.”

Rodney couldn’t help grinning. John Sheppard, ten years later.

“My dad kept me out of ‘Nam, but he couldn’t keep me out of the Air Force.”

“And now you’re here. Did Sam tell you about the F-302s?”

John sat up straighter, his eyes gleaming. “Tell me those are space ships.”

“Those are space ships.”

John whooped, Rodney laughed, and Sam made her exit with an “I’ll leave you to it.”

The odds were actually pretty astronomical that John and Rodney would meet again. More so that they’d find themselves becoming friends. A chance meeting turned into a bond that was unbreakable, no matter how many worlds they visited through the Stargate, no matter how many times they disagreed on philosophical matters, no matter how many times Rodney had to endure Johnny Cash songs.

There were still wars to be fought, but now Rodney was on the front lines, battling for the continued existence of humanity against threats from the Goa’uld and other less-than-friendly aliens. ‘Earth first!’ was the new slogan. 

And it all started with two guys on a roof, watching a fire and dreaming of greater things.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** I was super psyched for this prompt, but as it turns out I knew very little about the Kent State shootings. There was a lot of chaos happening on campus and in town leading up to that penultimate moment. Sot this ended up being pretty educational for me.
> 
> The flower in the gun barrel was actually at a protest a few years earlier. But that's okay. John and Rodney found a way to meet up anyway. ::grins::
> 
> Special thanks to Squidgie for the great prompt!


End file.
